G.-L. Bayle, who gave the best description of his time of the varieties of tubercular infection, was born into a well-to-do family in the mountain village of Vernet of Haute-Provence. As a youth he was interested in natural biology, but, plagued with indecision, he ventured first into theology, then law, and finally medicine. The introduction to the latter at Montpellier was prompted by an unhappy turn of political events in which he was involved in his community. Subsequently, Bayle returned to Paris and, in 1801, received the degree of doctor of medicine.1 The late matriculation in medicine was soon outbalanced by his industry and talents in teaching on the wards and in the morgue and in clinical management of internal diseases. In 1807, he was appointed to the staff of Charité and the following year physician to the royal household and the royal infirmary.